Process_Item

SYNOPSIS

  my $slashdot_news = "$Pgm_Root/data/web/slashdot_news.txt";
  $p_slashdot_news = new Process_Item("get_slashdot_news > $slashdot_news");
  start $p_slashdot_news if time_now('6:30 AM');
  display $slashdot_news if done_now $p_slashdot_news;

  $p_report_weblog = new Process_Item;
  $p_report_weblog ->set_output("$config_parms{data_dir}/weblog_results.txt");
  if (time_now '2 AM') {
      set   $p_report_weblog "report_weblog /mh/data/logs/server.$Year_Month_Now.log";
      start $p_report_weblog;
  }

Example of multiple commands

  $test_process1 = new Process_Item;
  set $test_process1 'sleep 1', 'sleep 2';
  add $test_process1 'sleep 1';

Example of running an internal mh subroutine $v_test_ftp = new Voice_Cmd 'Test background ftp [get,put]'; $p_test_ftp = new Process_Item; if ($state = said $v_test_ftp) { set $p_test_ftp "&main::net_ftp(file => '/tmp/junk1.txt', " . "file_remote => 'incoming/junk1.txt'," . "command => '$state')"; set_timeout $p_test_ftpb 60*2; start $p_test_ftpb; } print_log "Ftp command done" if done_now $p_test_ftp;

More examples are in mh/code/examples/test_process.pl

DESCRIPTION

You can use this object to run external programs. On Win32 systems, the Win32::Process function is used. On Unix systems, the fork function is used. On either system, the following methods work in the same way:

INHERITS

METHODS

new('program1 arguments', 'program2 arguments', ...)

set('program1 arguments', 'program2 arguments', ...)

set_timeout($timeout)

 Process will timeout after $timeout seconds

set_output($output_file)

Program STDOUT errata goes to $output_file

set_errlog($errlog_file)

Program STDERR errata goes to $errlog_file

add('program3 arguments', 'program4 arguments', ...)

If you specify more than one program, they are run sequentially. done_now returns 1 after the last program is done. If program starts with &, then 'program arguments' is eval-ed as an internal mh function. Otherwise, 'program arguments' is run as an external command. On Windows, the &-> eval trick is supposed to work with perl 5.6+ (which has fork), but unfortunately, it causes perl to crash often, so is probably not useful yet.

start(OptionalArguements)

Starts the process with optional program arguements

done

Returns the time (seconds since epoch) that the process finished. If the process has been started, but has not yet finished, it returns 0.

pid

Returns the process id

timed_out

Returns the time when the process timed out. done_now will still trigger for a timed_out process.

done_now

Is true for the pass that the process finished on.

stop

Stops the process. If called as a stand alone function (not as an object method), all active Process_Items are stopped.

nice_level

Support for setting "nice" level; only useful for *nix

get_type()

Returns the class (or type, in Misterhouse terminology) of this item.

INI PARAMETERS

NONE

AUTHOR

UNK

LICENSE

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

Process_Item.pm